Kevin Taylor and Cliff Duggan are two of our Regional Managers who lead teams that are ready and keen to assist Fonterra farmers whenever and wherever they need it. Kevin heads the team supporting farmers in Coastal Taranaki, while Cliff and his team support farmers in South Taranaki. At the time of writing, a Regional Manager for North Taranaki was in the final stages of recruitment.
Let’s hear from Kevin and Cliff about their roles.
Kevin:
I was born and raised on a dairy farm in South Taranaki. In my teens I spent four years with the New Zealand Army and then returned home into the dairy industry. I was a dairy farmer until 2003 when I joined Fonterra and have been with the Co-op since, working in numerous roles including retail, logistics, a Sustainable Dairy Advisor, and Area Manager.
Coastal Taranaki stretches from Carrington Road in New Plymouth down to Rama Road in South Taranaki along the Coastal Highway. There are approximately 430 farms in the coastal region that stretch from the mountain to the sea.
Our weather patterns are heavily impacted by the mountain. On the coast, pasture growth is completely different to up the mountain. Farms up the mountain could be two to three weeks behind where the coast is. If the coast starts to dry out, farmers up the top of the mountain know they probably have a good three weeks of breathing space before it hits them. But every area has its challenges. Some parts of the region can have heaps of rain and yet I’ll call someone down the other end, and they haven’t had any and it is less than an hour’s drive from each other.
No two days are the same. People have no idea about how diverse the Farm Source team is.
I can go from having a conversation with a Co-operative Services Area Manager about shares and milk, to chatting with a Sustainable Dairying Advisor about emissions and how farmers are going with effluent, then a Store Manager about profit and loss and EBITA, and how the team are supporting farmers in our retail business, before talking to a Technical Services Representative about how crops are establishing and challenges with insects.
We’re building our community on the coast, and we host small events where farmers can come along and meet each other and our team and share experiences and expertise. I love to chat with farmers and learn about their businesses and what they are up to, what their challenges are, and then work with our team to navigate these and come up with solutions to help them. Most times we can do it in-house with our team, other times we find someone in the business to help.
Our farmer meetings are great opportunities to share insights from the Co-op and talk through issues, such as the emissions journey. A farmer might see the 30% reduction and think how can my farm change by that much? We’ve been able to chat through this and reinforce that its a collective number and we all have a part to play as farmers and people supporting them to adopt scientifically backed farming practices. Actions can include improving herd performance, optimising nutrients from fertiliser, delivering optimal nutrition to cows.
Cliff:
I was born and bred in Northland surrounded by beef and sheep farms. At the start of my career I joined Town in Country Agri Centres, back then this was under the Northland Dairy Companies. Ironically, when Northland and Kiwi merged, I moved to Taranaki in 2001 taking a position in the Stratford Town & Country store progressing into the Store Manager of the Kaponga store for four years, then onto Inglewood store as the manager before having the opportunity to manage the region’s largest store in Hawera.
I gained the passion of how we could offer solutions and work more closely with our farmers, which encouraged my move to the technical side of our offering as a Technical Sales Representative (TSR) for Hawera, then Manaia and later Eltham and Kaponga. Having spent three and half years as a TSR I was asked to manage the TSR team which I did for three and half years as well, before becoming the now Regional Manager for South Taranaki. I have spent a large chunk of my career in the South Taranaki area and have built some strong connections to the local farmers and communities.
I’ve have clocked up 22 years with the Co-op in numerous roles with each opportunity brining new opportunities to learn more about the Co-op.
The South Taranaki area covers from the mountain down Auroa Road to Kaupokonui, East into of Eltham Township then all the way down to just before Whanganui. We have 461 farms in the South Taranaki Region with incredibly strong communities. The farms are all quite different, we have Kaponga up under the mountain with high rainfall which delivers challenging complexities. Then we go down to Waverley at the bottom end with sand dunes on some farms which get very dry very early especially as they’re exposed to the winds with minimal rainfall. In the South Taranaki region farms can have a calving date difference of 8 weeks, these differences can been seen in just a quick 20 minutes’ drive down the road from the mountain to the coast. The seasonal variations are quite significantly different in what is considered a small geographical area.
There are no doubts about it, the world is evolving! We are fortunate with the team of experts around us with Co-operative Services Area Managers, Sustainable Dairy Advisors, Technical Sales Representatives and Store team networks that all have a common goal of supporting our farmers with efficiency, profitability, and sustainability.
We love hearing from our farmers in the community and it helps provide important intel on what tools or levers we need to pull or concentrate on, whether it is looking at things like feed quality and availability, stock health, weather patterns, and what’s coming up.
This allows our sales teams and area managers to have early conversations with farmers about being planned for potential dryer than normal summers or whatever weather patterns might be coming. Every season seems to bring different issues.
In this role I want to create a stronger community and connection amongst our dairy farmers and communities as well as connecting our farmers together to provide the opportunities to share and learn from each other (that’s where the gold is) all while we are on the same journey of efficiency, profitability, and sustainability
Get in touch to find out more
Cliff and Kevin are just two of the many experts in the network, so don’t hesitate to get in touch with your local store or contact the farmer support team to find your best point of contact: 0800 65 65 68.